The View-Master Interactive Vision was a children's edutainment console
from 1988. The games were held on VHS tapes consisted of VHS footage
with computer graphics generated over the footage. This was done by
playing the tape in the VCR and passing the video signal through the
console. The console would identify game code hidden in the video signal
(the barcode on the right side of the frame) and use this to generate
the graphics in real time. This enabled a mixture of full-motion-video
and more traditional game graphics of the time. Also, because the
console connected with mono audio, but the developers wanted the console
to be able to switch to an alternate audio track, they hid a second
audio track inside the video signal (the waveform on the left side of
the frame). The console is able to interpret this and play back the
hidden audio
This
tape was ripped by playing the tape through the VCR without the
console. As such, the real-time graphics are not displayed, and instead
the game code is visible as black-and-white scrolling lines. In theory,
the digital video could be piped through the game console just the same
as an ordinary tape to retrieve the graphics.
This was originally recorded by Guy Hutchinson on YouTube.